be convinced of it you would surely immediately discharge me, because I have suffered from the beginning since I came here, and am totally at the end of my health. I want an immediate discharge. It will be immediately better when I leave Zurich for another air where the horrors are not represented, etc.
The patient manifests active delusions. She has a fortune of millions, in the night her bed is full of needles. In 1888 her speech became more and more disconnected and her delusions less understood; she has for example the "monopoly." She makes peculiar gestures with her hands. A certain "Rubinstein" from St. Petersburg sends her money by the wagonload. In 1889 she complained that her spinal cord was torn out in the night time. "Back pains are caused by substances covered with magnetism which penetrate through the walls." The "monopoly" confirms the pains which "do not stick in the body and do not fly about in the air." "Extracts" are made by means of "inhalation of chemistry," etc. By means "of suffocation" legions are murdered. "Station for station must keep its proper governmental position so that existence-questions of the ward cannot be chosen to hide themselves behind, all things can be chosen."
In 1890–91 the delusions became more and more absurd, a great but incomprehensible rôle is played by the word "note-monopoly." In 1892 the patient became "queen of the orphans," "owner of the asylum Burghölzli," "Naples and I must provide the whole world with noodles." In 1894 patient at every visit asked for her discharge in a stereotyped and totally unemotional manner. In 1895 patient feels herself paralyzed and claims to have tuberculosis. She is the owner of a "seven-floored note factory with coal-raven-black windows, which signifies paralysis and starvation." In 1896 patient says, "I am Germania and Helvetia of exclusively sweet butter, but now I have no more any supply of butter not even as much as a fly would leave behind—hm—hm—hm—that is starvation—hm—hm." (The syllable "hm" is a characteristic stereotyped insertion which still exists.) She also says, "I am Noah's ark, the life boat and the esteem, Maria Stuart, Empress Alexander."
In 1897 patient relates that recently Dr. D. came out of her
